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link click here Meridian ArticleWhen Joseph Smith presented the world the Book of Mormon in 1829, at age 23, he was a senior at Oxford studying English, theology, history and philosophy… Hold on. Actually, he had less than 6 years of “book learning” – probably a 5th grade education at best. Instead of school, he had plenty of years pulling stumps and farming, not exactly the resume of a writer. He had little .... link click here Meridian Article

Is God a Loving God?

By Mark J. Stoddard

One statement people constantly make that doesn’t work: “Why
would a Loving God allow__________?” You can easily fill in the blank. It is a
nonsensical (not nonsense) statement because once again mankind is creating God
in their own image and not vice versa.

When we state we believe in a Loving God, we add a formal adjective that
doesn’t belong. God is not The Angry God, The Vengeful God, or The Loving God. He is simply
God. We either believe and have faith in Him, or, we don’t. When we decide God
must be loving, we define God while we’re deciding what is loving and what is
not. Our limited ability to judge Deity with eternal perspective doesn’t seem
to stop us defining what is limited loving. On top of that we provide agnostics a chance to throw "Loving God" around to support their disbelief. "A Loving God wouldn't do that," they say.

What they fail to realize, and by extension we fail, is the word "loving" is defined in our finite terms.

If we walked into a room and watched a man take a knife and
cut a person, we’d recoil in horror and perhaps do something like attack the
man with a knife. In doing so, we’d claim to be loving. To the contrary we’d be
harming the man with the knife, a surgeon, and potentially kill the person on
the antiseptic operating table with our intrusion.

Yet we do this constantly by deciding what a loving God
would do. Isaiah wrote that “my way are not your ways saith the Lord, for as
the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and
my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Yet we persist in saying we worship a Loving God. Can we
determine how loving that God was to let thousands of Lamanite Warriors descend
upon thousands of some of the most dedicated and faithful people to ever
live…the Anti-Lehi-Nephites. Some scholars have suggested "Anti"
may be a reflex of the Egyptian "nty:" meaning “one of” or “to
align with someone.” Those who aligned with Nephi and Lehi had once been
blood-thirsty until they accepted Christ. When they did they knew that their
crimes were terrible and that should they ever take up arms against anyone –
even for a great reason like self-defense, their prior sins would be visited
upon their heads when they once again becoming blood-thirsty. They refused to
allow that awful state to return to them so they buried their weapons and
refused to take them up even though a horde of terrifying warriors was coming
upon them.

Those with faith in a Loving God might be tempted to say, “A
Loving God would look upon their great faith and miraculously save them from
destruction. Surely he could not let such goodness be for naught!”

But the Warriors descended upon them and a Loving God did
nothing. The Warriors slashed and murdered innocent men. Where was the Loving
God? Firmly in his omniscient state. God’s will contains eternal perspective. Soon
the Lamanites could hack and cut no more and broke down and wept at the carnage
they’d caused. Thousands that day left their blood-thirsty ways and joined or
aligned with the Anti-Lehi-Nephites.

Later we learned of another attack and how the remainder of
Anti-Lehi-Nephites and the recent converts again refused to take up arms, even
in self-defense. But their sons had not needed to swear such oath so they took
up arms and defended their parents with stunning results. How many millions of
people have been inspired by their faith in their mothers – surely every ward
has a speaker on Mother’s Day read from the Book of Alma where Helaman
describes the great faith of these stripling warriors as they attribute their
faith to their mothers: “we knew our mothers knew it…”. Perhaps an Omniscient
God was indeed a Loving God once we understood a fraction of divine
perspective.

Perhaps an omniscient God, as He describes Himself and His
Son, knows what real “loving” is: ‘This is my work and my glory to bring to
pass the Eternal Life and Immortality of Man.”

He knows the operating room, the doctor, the world
completely and asks us to have faith in Him even when life’s trials seem to go
against us.

When my first son Alexander lay in intensive care with three
strains of E Coli pneumonia threatening his every breath and the doctor giving
him a less than 50-50 chance of living. I went to the cafeteria where I thought
a little food might help. But, I couldn’t eat as I sat and pondered. Wiping
away tears and fears, it hit me hard. “Now is the time for you to decide what
your faith in God really is.” The rubber was meeting the road. This wasn’t some
ambiguous philosophy class discussion. This was reality. And it came to me as I
closed my eyes and said, “Whether my son lives or my son dies, like Job said,
Blessed be the name of the Lord.” In confidence I arose…not confident my son
would live. I didn’t know that. But I knew that I knew God lived and my son was
in His hands.

Our son is now a faithful husband and father of six. He
lives. His testimony is strong and he and Becky are teaching their children
well. But the end was not yet.

Alex with Becky (right), my mother, other of Becky's and our
family, with Alex and Becky's kids in the back at Thanksgiving.

Within seven years of Alex’s birth, his two brothers died
too young. We grieved, but the question of a Loving God or an Omniscient God
had long been answered. That answer or foundation of faith, buoyed us up so
that we could “Be Still and Know that I Am God.” As we were still, the Comforter
was poured out upon us. Our boys were taken, but the faith of our children was
strengthened and we were blessed.

How could a Loving God allow a child to die – two dear sons
to die? Because He knows how it will build us and where it will lead us in this
life and beyond.

Christ Visiting Ancient Russians

Imagine my surprise to find this Nesterov painting from about 1900 on a phonograph record celebrating 1,000 years of baptism in Russia. To receive a free hi-def version, please email mark@mjstoddard.com and subject line Russian Painting.